1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for performing searches through content on web sites. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus that facilitates searching through content which is not directly available on web pages, but is instead accessible though queries entered into web-based forms.
2. Related Art
Much of the power of the World Wide Web arises from the ability of search engines to rapidly comb through billions of web pages looking for pages associated with keywords of interest. Unfortunately, a large portion of the data which is available on the web is hidden behind web-based forms, and is consequently not searchable by traditional search engines.
A user typically accesses this type of data by filling in input fields in a web-based form. This causes a corresponding database query to be generated based on the values contained in the input fields, and the database query is submitted to an underlying database. This query causes data to be returned, and this data is typically displayed to a user. For example, a web-based form for local property tax records can accept an address in a set of input fields and can output a corresponding property tax record for the address. In another example, a web-based form for a chain of coffee shops can accept a city name or a postal code in a set of input fields and in response can display the locations of nearby coffee shops.
Traditional search engines lack the ability to search through this type of data which is hidden behind web-based forms. Consequently, a large amount of possibly relevant data cannot be easily accessed through traditional search engines.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus that facilitates efficiently searching through information which is hidden behind web-based forms.